


Poetic Beauty

by kissed



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, JaeYong - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, my family - Freeform, struggling actor!jaehyun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:17:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissed/pseuds/kissed
Summary: Jaehyun is a struggling actor who works at a convenience store near his home to get by and Taeyong is man who keeps him company during his graveyard shift. Taeyong doesn't want to admit he's in love with Jaehyun's soul and Jaehyun doesn't want to believe it either-i suck at summaries





	Poetic Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get back into writing longer fics. Please help me finish this fic. hihi This is a pretty angsty fic compared to my other work. Also, this chapter has mentions of suicide. Thank you for reading :)

 

 

Jaehyun is rushing for his first audition for the day. He psyched himself up silly that he’d finally get one serious acting job in the past three months he’s been trying in Seoul. Acting is not glamorous as it sounds. Well, sure, if you were born into a family of actors then deciding to go into the acting scene is the only problem you need to think about because carrying the name gives you a head start. 

Unfortunately, he was not born into a family of actors, in fact he was born into a family who did not believe in the importance of a television in their homes and would prefer to see real acting in theaters. Jaehyun remembers those days where his mother would dress him up all spiffy and handsome, comb his hair back and put on some of his father’s light cologne, she would wear some jewellery his father gave her over the years and his father would drive their little old Corolla to the theater and they would enjoy the performance together in one line right smack in the middle, the best seats in the house because his father was high school best buddies with the owner of the theater and then when they would come home after dinner at a small family restaurant, Jaehyun would look in the bathroom mirror and think that acting was going to be something he would do for the rest of his life.

But once reality took the front seat from his dream, snatched it away like taking candy from a baby, when he got a little older and saw how competitive the world of the entertainment industry could be it had fuelled him more to strive and be better with his craft. He knew he had it in him, he knew talent was inside him and that people were just sleeping on him and he gets it, why would people give a chance to a half baked young actor hopeful when there are already hundreds of sure fire profitable actors in the scene that they could choose from to boost their movie marketing ploys.

So when he kissed his mother goodbye and shook his father’s hand at the station going to Seoul, he knew he had to come back to his family with a repertoire that they would be proud of. But it’s been three months since he’s left home and he’s gotten a few jobs that paid the bills, projects on being an extra in movies that made billions and hit the charts but Jaehyun mostly relies on his convenience store job during the night and he goes out in the day to go to his auditions.

With instant coffee running through his system, he breezes through the throng of people rushing to get to their jobs, students chatting loudly as they go in groups walking towards to their respective schools and Jaehyun is about to present an ID to the security personnel so that he would be given access to the building he was supposed to be on. He’s got it all figured out—the lines, the rhythm and theme of the movie—he just had a good feeling about this audition unlike the other auditions he’s been to the last few days, he’s got a good feeling on this one. 

 

-

 

As much as he doesn’t like the graveyard shift job in the convenience store near his rented apartment, it pays his bills and keeps him alive. Jaehyun can’t count how many times he’s wanted to stab himself to death by the vacuum packed sausage that’s placed on the counter near the condoms and lighters because he’s just so fucking tired and it will only be ten in the evening, he’s got eight more hours before he could squeeze in a nap and start his day again but for some reason he’s got a skip on his step, a smile on his face that’s gotten Mark, the person responsible for the noon-afternoon shift which is a young fellow that goes to university during the night because he can’t afford to go to regular university because his mother is sick and his sister is doing nothing to help their family, creeped out. 

It’s only been three hours since his shift and he’s done the inventory for the month, dusted the snack racks, turned the drinks so that that the labels are sticking out, swept the floor free from fallen hair and dust, served exactly seven customers and four of them bought a packet of 3 in 1 condoms. Kids can be so horny these days. All of which he’s done with a stupid smile on his face. 

He doesn’t know, maybe there was something in the water he drank this morning or maybe it was the instant coffee he had before his first audition. 

“Excuse me,” the voice brings him back to earth, he fixes his vest and brings his smile back to where the customer has placed a canned coffee drink in front of Jaehyun to scan. He takes it and scans it quickly while explaining the promo that they have going on for the brand of coffee the customer has decided to purchase.

Jaehyun looks up to see the customer’s face, shaking his head and turning him down with his polite offer and Jaehyun doesn’t speak, just informs him of his bill and asks for the money. The exchange was quick, he asks if he needed a plastic bag to go, the customer says no and Jaehyun doesn’t pry. He bids him a safe goodbye, bowing casually as the customer dampened his mood, the skip in his step had him falling down a little but soon recovered because there was just no way he could fuck this day up. He would drink that instant coffee sachet again tomorrow if it means he's going to feel like this every damn day.

He notices the customer took a seat outside, under the umbrellas where the plastic chairs are located for the customer’s convenience and Jaehyun is glad he had finished cleaning that area before someone had decided to sit down on it. 

With the time he needed to kill he decides to spend it on practicing his lines for the next audition he had lined up for tomorrow. It was about a child getting abandoned and killed, the detective is to find out who had killed the child and turns out the said detective would be the one who killed the child who apparently was his own flesh and blood that was hidden from his by his former lover, the detective had a mental disorder. Jaehyun thinks it’s a little bit of a long shot as for the writers but it’s an interesting plot he would like to be part of. 

He’s managed to memorize the lines he needed for the audition tomorrow and rehearsed them to its rawest form but when he looks outside he can still see the customer who bought the canned coffee staring into the night sky looking all problematic and melancholic. He decides to take a break, it’s a little out of his character but he ups and leaves his booth to go outside and pretend to clean the area.

Bringing the broom out, he slowly sweeps the farthest place from the customer while slightly glancing at him. 

From the corner of his eye he could tell how the other person was feeling. Longing.

He was longing for something, for someone. He was missing something or he lost something he thought he didn’t need, he was blind sighted of some sort and now he’s blaming himself from all of this mess he’s got in his hands or doesn’t have.

“Stop psychoanalyzing me,” he hears him speak, his eyes widen. Fuck him and his staring habits.

“I’m sorry. I should go back inside. Have a nice night, sir,” Jaehyun hurries back into the store with his broom in hand when he hears the customer ask something under his breath. 

“What do you think?” a quiet voice, masked and walls up high. Jaehyun uses his broom as his help, suddenly his knees turn to jello as continues to stare into this person’s face, he’s assumed he’s gotten the permission to because he’s engaging this conversation when he cut it off as soon as he was caught. 

“About?” confused. 

“What I’m thinking. I have this sick hunch that you were thinking about what I was thinking and my hunch is I know that you know what I’m feeling,” then the customer turns his head so he can see Jaehyun fidget slightly with the broom handle under his chin, his gaze too much it’s piercing and Jaehyun has yet to encounter someone who has this much power when it came to looking at people. 

“Well,” he starts. 

“You lost something,” as soon as he dropped those words from his mouth, the customer’s lip trembled, he tries to hide his uncertainty but Jaehyun sees right through it all.

“You’re longing for something you lost but you don’t know how to bring things back or where to look for it which brings you here,” the customer tries to hide his shocked expression that it led to him smiling wide. He stands up, tipping his hat to Jaehyun and smiling back at him again. 

“I’ve got to go now. Nice talking with you,” he leaves nothing but the coffee can he had purchased earlier, sitting on top of the plastic table that’s probably empty.

Jaehyun shakes his head and gets the can of empty coffee. He could have at least thrown it in the rubbish bin before he left. 

 

-

 

He doesn’t get a call back the next day or the day after he left unusually chirpy and positive. It sucks because he really thought he would get the part of Shinji, a Korean Japanese office man who is a 25 year old play boy who helps his friend’s sister to getting the guy of her dreams but ends up falling for each other. Whatever, a cheesy romcom movie didn’t sound like a good stepping stone to stardom anyway.

Jaehyun enters the convenience store to see Mark holding his textbook and a ball pen scribbling down notes in the counter, too busy to even hear the ring of the entrance bell. In a way, he thinks his life is better than Marks’—he’s finished college, he didn’t have to worry about his education and he had a proper childhood wherein his parents had let him choose whatever path he wanted to take. Mark however, did not have the means and privilege to even have a happy childhood because he needed to hustle, he didn’t to survive and still put food on the table for the family that should be taking care of him. 

Mark’s hair is a mess right now and even a bigger mess when Jaehyun decided to ruffle his hideously artificially curled blonde hair to get his attention.

“Hyung, stop it!” he’s got one hand in the air asking for mercy, Jaehyun gives it to him and then he pouts when the younger goes back to his textbook rather than giving his full undivided attention to him. Jaehyun gives up annoying Mark and heads goes inside the booth so that he could put on his vest and shoo Mark away so he could study properly or at least at a proper table and chair.

“Get out of here, I got this,” he whines as he jokingly pushes Mark away so that he would leave the damn booth already and go to night school. 

Mark is looking up at him with glassy eyes, he looks stressed out and a little needy but not enough to say it out loud. He scribbles a few words before he closes the book and smiles up to Jaehyun who’s got his vest on, scripts open and ready to take on his ten hour graveyard shift. 

When he looks at Mark who is fixing his things, textbooks inside his ratty backpack, thick worn out excuse for a jacket on the chair beside them, a very bad salon appointment that he calls his hair but a face of an angel that shouldn't be grinding this hard at this young age.

“You should lay off the hard working attitude, you’re making me look bad,” he jokes and Mark laughs at him and nods just like a little boy would do when they’re talking to the elders. Agree and act like you really care. 

“You should practice on your acting, hyung. You’re not fooling anyone and I ain’t got no money,” he retaliates to where he thinks it would annoy Jaehyun the most but Jaehyun just laughs and shoos Mark away. 

When Mark leaves he goes by his work routine; do inventory for the next shift, clean the store, fix the racks and dust them, do his random checks and then study his lines for his auditions. Usually it would take him about one to two hours before he gets to the last portion wherein he could practice but he skips it most of the time because that’s when the store is the busiest especially during weekends.

He looks at the clock after waiting for thirty minutes after serving his last customer and realizes it’s almost twelve midnight and Jaehyun knows he should be here any minute if he’s going to come like the past few weeks ever since he first start coming here. 

Jaehyun learns that the man’s name is Taeyong. No last name, just Taeyong but he says he can call him hyung for short or his name if he preferred it he says he has no bounds when it comes to name calling. This fellow was a little curt with his words, ask and you shall receive but the questions come from Jaehyun most of the time and he would ask anything under the sun because Taeyong’s answers are short but always fun and talking to him always killed his work hours faster than color coordinating the cans and arranging them by expiration date.

He always wore the same clothes. Black denim pants, sometimes a cap if he felt like it and a medium sized black shirt that fits a tad big for him, a mediocre looking belt that looked expensive (the buckle gave it away but take away the buckle it looked like any normal belt) and he always had that pale faced glow with him every time he came around midnight and he would always buy the canned coffee that he still refuses to throw away when he decides it’s his time to go home. 

Being anxious at the time because it’s already half past twelve and he has yet to see Taeyong’s shadow or his grim reaper like clothing. He knows it’s nothing, this daily late night visits Taeyong does. He never said anything about visiting, maybe he goes to the store because he’s got nothing better to do or maybe because Jaehyun is damn well good converser if he was going to be really honest with himself. He also knows that expecting him every night is not good for his soul too because Taeyong is just an insomniac customer that likes to spend time talking with a struggling actor who works at a convenience store to live. Jaehyun also knows that he’s got other things he needs to do than wait around for a person who doesn’t need to be here because they are neither of them are even friends. 

Are they?

“Hey, earth to Jaehyun,” he hears a can being stomped on the counter and he sees those lithe fingers covered with thin silver rings, that obnoxious belt buckle and he smiles to himself thinking, _man I’m fucked_.

“You’re late,” Jaehyun jokes just for fun while he scans the can, it’s not coffee this time that’s new and he smiles even more because it’s Strawberry milk. He tells him the amount and finally looks up to see Taeyong’s face only to be covered with his black cap. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Taeyong says as he fumbles for 4,050 won and helps himself to a small plastic straw.

Taeyong doesn’t know how Jaehyun is trying really hard not to show his shocked face because that wasn’t the response that he was expecting but then their fingers touch when Taeyong hands him the money and it only confirms the things swirling in his head. 

“You busy? Can you come out?” Taeyong asks him and he finally sees his face that causes him to gasp and all personal bubble aside, he’s got his hands all over Taeyong’s forearm to get him a little closer because his left eye is covered with a bluish bruise that he did not bother to cover with anything. Well, a cap. He tried. 

“What the fuck happened to you? What happened to that,” Jaehyun wants to touch it but he’s afraid it would hurt Taeyong’s face more than it already is. The other just smiles but doesn’t push Jaehyun away, he simply smiles at Jaehyun and stays silent. 

Jaehyun notes the closeness of their faces, feels how Taeyong’s skin is a little rough than it looks and the smile that’s plastered on Taeyong’s face. He looks up because he just needs to back away for a moment, this is all too much for him to handle, and then he spots the CCTV camera and he jumps, pushing Taeyong away then opening the booth door, checked the store for customers (none, thank God) and dragged Taeyong out where they could take their usual seats. 

Taeyong is sipping on his Strawberry milk quietly and Jaehyun’s face has an ugly shade of red, it’s awkward. So very fucking awkward that Jaehyun doesn’t know why he’s even here, he could just say he’s busy but.. Taeyong. 

“I hope it was worth it,” Jaehyun mumbles because Taeyong won’t talk if he won’t start talking, that's just how things are. 

“You should see the other guy,” Taeyong laughs. The thing about Taeyong’s laugh to Jaehyun is like a blue moon. It’s elusive and only comes at a certain time when it wants to show itself but when decide to, it’s breathtakingly beautiful. 

“I thought you tripped or did something stupid,”

“But violence doesn’t solve anything, stupid,” Jaehyun adds before he ends his turn to speak. 

“Actually, it was pretty stupid but my brother was acting the same way so I blew up, you know how brothers are,” Taeyong finishes his milk and crushes the plastic container. 

“Actually, I don’t. I’m an only child. What did your brother do to? Was it that bad?”

"Oh you don't know the shit brothers do to each other," Taeyong laughs again and Jaehyun thinks everything is going to be alright. 

Taeyong tells him he’s got three brothers, he says they were all so close until the middle brother decided to commit suicide. He jumped off a ledge during one of the nights Taeyong was busy wasting away his life trying to be stupid and rebel at his parents for not showing up that much and his eldest brother was hustling in his line of work. _He called me, there were three missed calls from my brother who was about to sell his soul to the devil just so he could have his peace. I didn’t see through his smile, I didn’t see that he was having a hard time because he was such a gentle person out of us three he was the one you would rely on the most and he was always fucking there when I needed him and I wasn’t there for him when he needed someone the most_. Jaehyun felt his insides break, his heart, his lungs, everything suddenly stopped working and all he could feel was pain, pain, pain. Taeyong wasn’t crying but his body language was enough to tell Jaehyun that he was still trembling in sorrow even if the tragedy happened six years ago. 

Jaehyun is not stupid to think that Taeyong is blaming himself after all these years. He’s scared from how his shoulders hunch, how he bites his lip and looks away, Jaehyun is scared about how much he can Taeyong when he’s only known him for a few stolen weeks. 

“We got into a fight and he mentioned Youngjae hyung and it just threw me off.. I never thought I would hear his name again like that. Especially when we were already fighting. I only knew I punched him when I felt my knuckles hurt and my face on the floor,” Jaehyun keeps himself silent, letting Taeyong finish.

“Jaejoong hyung was surprised too. We both were, it’s not like we fight all the time. I barely see him anyway, he’s always busy with work and when we do see each other it’s-,” Taeyong takes a deep breath and focuses his attention to the lamp post in front of them, trying not to make eye contact with Jaehyun because he knows if he does Jaehyun would see right through his soul and he can’t have that, he’s already sharing something as personal as this. 

“Awkward. Like we’re not brothers, like we didn't have matching pyjamas when we were young,” Jaehyun felt the finality in Taeyong’s voice, he switches his legs and positions it to where Taeyong’s body is limp and tired looking. His body directed in front of the person he’s talking to, ears peeled and eyes looking so apologetic. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, he feels like that’s all he can say. He doesn’t have a brother, he doesn’t know what it feels like to fight with someone as important as your sibling let alone losing one.

Taeyong half smiles at him and waves him off. 

“Don’t be,” 

“You miss him,” Taeyong looks up at Jaehyun’s eyes now, he notes how brown they are under the white lights of the store and how big they are up close as he scoots closer to where Jaehyun is stuck frozen because Taeyong is closing in on him, too fucking close for him to handle. 

Taeyong stops moving but his hand lands on top of Jaehyun’s hand that’s resting on his knee, his vest squeaks as he moves into a much more comfortable position and Taeyong’s eyes are piercing him, pinning him down, telling him to stop moving and he does. He follows Taeyong, he does whatever his body tells him to do and he just freezes while the other’s eyes dig into his soul. If he’s worthy, if he’s really what he tells him, if this is real. 

“Why..” Taeyong’s breath is hot against Jaehyun’s lips, not touching but close enough to feel the breath come out of his lips when he talks and the tension between his eyebrows run deep, the hand on top of his warmer and stronger compared to the skinny pianist fingers he has when he hands the money to him across the counter.

“Do you always read my mind like nobody else?”

He was about to open his mouth and speak when he hears voices of people from the back of his head and it immediately rips him out of his fantasy and backs away then stands up, fixing his vest and hair like it had been blown by a strong breeze. He breathes in and then out before looking at Taeyong who looks like he’s just been pulled out of a dream as well, a little dazed and confused but comes back straight to reality when he sees Jaehyun run back to the store to serve the people who just came in.

So he gets up and leaves without saying goodbye.

That had gotten a little too intense than he had planned.


End file.
